This Week’s Backstage Country Host: Brooks and Dunn
This week’s Backstage Country co-hosts is Brooks and Dunn! Join Kelly Ford as they talk about the duo’s album Reboot II, what surprises the fans can expect, and funny stories from when they were making the record.
Brooks and Dunn: Reboot II
Ford asked the duo about their recently released album, Reboot II. Kix Brooks said, “[We’re] kind of digging this reboot thing. I mean, we got away with it once, so we decided to try it again.”
Brooks and Dunn also discussed with Ford their iconic and patriotic song, “Only in America,” which they reimagined with Corey Kent. Brooks said, “Fortunately, we wrote that song before 9/11 because it was a patriotic song, and it was a couple of grown men talking about ‘We really are proud to be Americans.’” He continued, “And then when the tragedy of 9/11 happened, it was something that I think, in a way, our country and certainly our country music fans gravitated to because this isn’t something we’re singing just because of something bad that happened. We were singing this already.”
Brooks also shared that they’ve had a marine as part of their road team, and one of their road crew suggested he come out on stage. He said, “Every show since then, we’ve had some branch of the military on stage with us when we sang that song.”
Ford mentioned Marcus King’s reimagining of “Rock My World (Little Country Girl)” as a soul music song. Ronnie Dunn said Brooks got the scoop on the song. He shared, “Reboot was pretty much [made] with country artists,” but explained that Reboot II took a different approach. “This is an album that we invited some other genres and really kind of opened it up, not just the freedom of creativity, but also to some other genres. It’s fun having some rock bands and a great R&B singer-guitar player, Marcus King, on this thing.”
Brooks also shared that King got fired up, “They made a couple of runs at it and he got fired up and just told them, ‘Hey, this ain’t no Nashville thing. Here we are, South Carolina boys, and we’re going to eat this song up.’ So, I love it. Yeah, they jumped on it hard. And we went after it, and we finally got around to singing with him.”
“CMA Day”
Ford asked Brooks and Dunn about their first Country Music Association win. The duo had a hard time remembering their first win; they weren’t sure if it was for New Artist or Duo. (It was Vocal Duo of the Year, an award they won consecutively from 1992 to 1999, then again from 2001-2006).
Dunn said, “[Awards] are always the icing on the cake along the way, along the journey. And we kind of think, at this point, we realize, there are more relevant young artists that are out there. We’re not in that spot [anymore].”
Brooks added, “This project, this is not just a labor of love. This project has so many dimensions for us. We’re not just making another brick. And it’s not a remake of Reboot either. It’s like this is a real challenge with a lot of different artists that we didn’t know what was going to happen when we walked in there. It’s like, take a deep breath and man, let’s go see what we can come up with here. It was a real challenge and a lot of fun.”
Tune in to Backstage Country all week for more behind-the-scenes, funny anecdotes and song inspirations from the Academy of Country Music’s top vocal duo.
